Welcome to The Teachers' Lounge! We invite you to warm up with a cup of tea and some good conversation. Join us as we explore topics in early childhood, discuss challenges facing parents and educators of young children and share new activities!

The California 4th Grade Mission Project has almost become a rite of passage for 4th graders and their parents who attend California Schools that follow the State Board of Education Curriculum requirements. This study encourages students to engage in the history of California Missions and the changes that occurred in pre-Columbia Native cultures by the introduction of Spanish Missions and ranches. This project is a big deal for students because it involves a three-part process that guides them on various intellectual levels: exploration, written/verbal academics, time management and artistic creation/execution.

The students are first required to visit a mission. This is usually done as a class trip to the nearest mission in the local area. They then write a paper and build a model version of the mission of their choosing. Writing the paper allows students to start critically thinking on various topics within the history of California. Some of these topics include colonialism, the building of the missions, economics, geography, religious beliefs, land grants, California Native Americans and the introduction of Western European agriculture along with the relationships and the conflicts that arose due to these changes.

The process of building a model version of a historic mission is the third step to completing this project. Each student picks the mission that they would like to recreate and then chooses the materials with which to build this miniature mission. Many of the materials used are craft products that are already available or easy to get.

For the next month through the Teacher’s Lounge (which is sponsored by Discount School Supply®) and our other social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, we will be promoting multiple examples of Mission Projects and the materials that we have available to ship directly to you to assist your child in creating their model mission for the California 4th Grade Mission Project.